What You Need to Hear
by Symphonic Din
Summary: With all the supernatural goings-on in Beacon Hills, it's easy to forget just how human Stiles is. (In which Stiles has been keeping the secret surrounding Donovan's death for too long.)


No one had noticed Stile's anxiety. No one commented on the dark circles dragging his eyes down during class, or the over-sized shirts he'd pulled out of storage to keep the gauze on his shoulder a secret. There was too much going on to worry about those details, those utterly human symptoms of stress.

It felt like there was a new death in Beacon Hills every hour, every minute, and every time he looked at the board in front him, he felt the urge to write the missing name. _Donovan._ He'd done it more than once in private, writing it down, making connections, only to erase it on the verge of panic. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the blood bubbling up from Donovan's mouth, the steel impaled through his heart, the blood, the _accident,_ the murder.

He saw it while he dozed in class, at lunch, while he was on the road. If he did manage to fall asleep, the pain in his shoulder would jerk him back to consciousness. The bite was hard to see in the mirror, since it was more on his back than his shoulder, but he checked it every day. It hadn't started to heal, and he knew he needed to see someone about it. Scott's mom or Dr. Deaton would know what to do, but they'd also know what questions to ask, and the thought alone—admitting what he'd done out loud—made him so anxious he felt like he would drop dead right then and there.

So he let the wound be. He took care of it as best he could with the first-aid kit they had at home, but it was barely enough. For once, he was glad he was benched for lacrosse.

It all came to a head when he overheard his dad on the phone nearly three weeks later. It was just a snippet of a sentence; 'We're still missing that Donovan kid,' he heard his dad say.

Stiles felt the world tilt, his chest tighten, his fingers fidget. He froze at the bottom of the stairs, shoulder against the wall to steady himself. He tried to listen to the rest of the conversation, but his own heart drowned out the words. He was, in that moment, engulfed in absolute panic. It had been building for weeks and he'd been trying to hide it with focus, with concern for Kira, Lydia, and the Dread Doctors, but hearing Donovan's name brought it all crashing down at once.

"Stiles?" He heard his dad say, an edge of urgency in his voice that hinted that he might have missed a few calls, "Stiles, hey, Stiles! Look at me!"

He felt hands on his shoulders, and the world started to straighten out. He recoiled from the fire the bite sent through his spine, but that only made his dad keep a tighter hold. "Stiles! Breathe, breathe, it's alright."

He found himself sitting against the wall at the base of the stairs, air rushing through his lungs faster than they ever had. The muddled perception made something abundantly clear; he was having a panic attack.

"What happened?" his dad asked, "I heard you from my office, and I thought you were trying to eavesdrop on my calls again. I came out here, and… Are you okay?"

Stiles stood up in a hurry, a little unsteady on his feet, and nodded curtly. "Yeah, dad. Yeah, I'm alright." His eyes dodged to the floor, the walls, never looking at his dad for long. "I just had a rough night, y'know? All of this going on," He motioned to the air in front of him like 'this' was a thing he could pass around, "The doctors, the… the murders," He blinked hard, "Deaths."

His dad looked at him hard, like he was sizing up a perp right before interrogation. "Well, you've been working hard trying to figure everything out," He conceded, "You should be getting more sleep."

The way he talked, it sounded like Mr. Stilinski wasn't sure he was giving the right advice.

"I've been getting as much as I can, dad. Promise." He gave him a double thumbs-up, smiling in that way kids did to appease their parents. "I guess some of it's just overwhelming, sometimes."

Mr. Stilinski didn't say anything for a long moment, but then let him go. "I'd guess it would be. You know I don't know all that much about… this," He motioned to the 'this' that Stiles had created earlier, "but I know a lot about this," He pointed to Stiles, "And you can always talk t—"

The hand he held between them was stamped with red, and in the seconds it took Mr. Stilinski to understand where it had come from, Stiles had reached over to cover the growing red stain on the shoulder of his shirt.

"It's nothing," Stiles sputtered out, "It's, it's, I fell out of bed and hit it on the nightstand."

"Jesus Christ," Mr. Stilinski breathed, "Turn around, let me see. It's got to need stitches—when did this happen?"

Stiles took a step back, stumbling and ending up seated on the stairs, "I—I, Dad, it's nothing, really. I can just patch it up here. It looks worse than it is, swear."

"Just let me see, Stiles."

Stiles knew that was the tone of a man who'd spent the last 17 years of his life raising a child with ADHD. A child that he knew how to (and was prepared to) wrangle if necessary. Still, he didn't move. His hand stayed where it was on his shoulder, but his face crumpled.

"Dad, I'm so sorry," He started, keeping a tight hold on the wound, "I'm so sorry."

Mr. Stilinski was more alarmed than anything else, but confusion clocked in at a close second. "What? Stiles, it's alright. I don't know what it is, but—"

"I know where Donovan is," He blurted out, "He's dead, dad. He's dead, and I," he let go of his shoulder to point at himself, "I was the one who did it. It was an accident, I swear. I _swear._ He was trying to kill me, and I didn't—I didn't know he'd—"

"Stiles, Stiles, slow down," Mr. Stilinski couldn't believe it. It was a miscommunication, he thought. Stiles could hear it in the way he said it. "You mean the kid that went missing a few weeks ago?"

Stiles nodded, eyes screwed shut. "My car was busted, the engine overheated, and I pulled over in the parking lot t-to fix it. He grabbed me from behind," He took his own shoulder again, "With these—these _teeth,_ on his hand, and I—"

Mr. Stilinski was quick to pull the neck of his shirt to the side, and Stiles let him. He hissed as soon as he saw the cut. "This is a _bite,_ Stiles—you're saying he bit you? How many weeks has it—"

"I hit him with the wrench, and I didn't know who he was until I started running," Stiles continued, "He chased me back into where they're doing construction, and I undid one of the bolts on a… a… it all came down, and he, a steel beam went right through him, dad. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. God, I didn't mean to."

Mr. Stilinski let his shirt go, and then hugged him tight. Stiles, in turn, wrapped his good arm around his dad's shoulders.

"You did the right thing," His dad said, "You did. It was you or him, Stiles. You couldn't have done anything else."

 _You did the right thing._

As much as Stiles had thought about what happened to Donovan, those words had never crossed his mind. _It was self-defense. It was murder. You should have saved him._ Those haunted him morning, noon, and night, but never had he stopped to think that he'd done the _right thing._

"Sometimes, when you're a cop," Mr. Stilinski started, "You have to make a judgement call. You have to shoot first, and sometimes you're doing it to scare who you're after. Sometimes you hit people you don't mean to. And looking back on it, you think you could have done a dozen things differently. But if you'd done anything differently, you might not be here. It's okay, Stiles."

 _It's okay._

Stiles hugged him tighter and then let him go.

"That's not all," Stiles inhaled, "The body—"

"You can tell me tomorrow morning," Mr. Stilinski cut him off, "Right now, we're going to get this… bite taken care of. You're not going to shift into a werewolf on me, are you?" He said it with a touch of humor, but it only barely masked genuine concern.

"I think it would've healed by now," Stiles admitted, "Besides, the guy was a… a chimera. Some kind of mix. Pretty sure they aren't contagious."

Mr. Stilinski helped Stiles to his feet, brows in his hairline. "We're dealing with cross-breed supernatural kids now? How does that happen? Do a… a werewolf and a vampire decide to—"

"No—dad, gross." He laughed in a tired sort of way, "It's… there's a lot to go over. There's a lot going on. It's not that simple—I wish it was."

Mr. Stilinski led the way upstairs, "I thought we were going to keep each other in the loop about all of this supernatural stuff."

"I've been trying to," Stiles defended himself, fingers fidgeting, "I've been trying to warn everyone about—about Theo, but they think I'm paranoid. Everyone does. It's hard to trust what you think when everyone is telling you it's all in your head. And… when I killed Donovan, I thought I'd lost it."

"When Donovan died," Mr. Stilinski corrected.

"When he died," Stiles agreed, "I called the station to report it. The cop didn't find the body, and when I went back in, I—I couldn't either. The blood was gone, the steel was gone, the body was _gone._ I didn't know if I was going crazy, or… or if—"

It was hard to say what he was really thinking. It was hard to admit, out loud, that he was afraid that he was losing his grip again. Losing his mind to the Nogitsune, losing his mind to the same disease that'd taken his mom, the difference was negligible.

"Stiles," His dad cut in, "We'll deal with it tomorrow, alright? All that matters is you made it out."

 _You made it._

 _You survived._

 _All that matters._


End file.
